NSPCC - Cartoon
A multi-award winning Roger-Rabbit-style cinema PIF from the NSPCC made in 2002, using live-action and animation to harrowing effect, as child abuse gets treated like wacky comedy to cover up the reality, the only way it can be depicted with visual accuracy. Live action directed by the late Frank Budgen and animation directed by Russell Brooke. Classified 18 for strong language. Description: We see a living room with a man walking out of the entrance door. He sees a cartoon version of his son sitting on the couch with the television playing. He hits the toon boy on the head, who then feels dizzy for a few seconds before shaking and looking at his father. The father then points to the television and angrily asks him who touched his videos, and the boy just sits there. The father in response picks up the Toon character, shakes him, and throws him at a table and a lamp, which both tip over with the Toon's physical interaction properties. The boy then turns his head upright. At the next scene we see the father step on a toy in the kitchen, where the boy is playing with his toys all over the kitchen floor. The father throws the toy at his son and throws his son at a door, where he leaves a crack on it and slides down, causing a bump on the top of his head. He pushes it back down. At the next scene we see the man sitting on the chair with a coffee cup and a cigarette (speaking of “cigarettes“, they have smoking PIF’s in this wiki!) The boy runs and trips over the man's leg, and the man scolds him for running in the house and burns his head with his cigarette butt. The boy's head gets on fire and he runs around to the sink, where he puts out the fire and his head turns black and crumbles off. We then see the father look for his son near his bedroom and finally catch him looking at his TV. The boy backs away and the father angrily shakes him, causing the boy to wet his pants. He yells, cussing at the boy once more, and while the boy runs out of his room, the man throws him down the stairs until he finally falls down from the bottom step. Once the bottom is reached, he stands on one foot, having his last breath before he falls. We pan around the living room to see the boy, no longer a Toon, lying on the floor unconscious with the text fading in, reading "Real children don't bounce back" and fade out. Text saying "If you think a child is being abused, do something" fades in along with the NSPCC logo and information about child abuse. Variant: There is a edited and censored version of this PIF where the swearing is censored and some shots were trimmed out. FX/SFX: Live Action except for the boy until the end of the PIF. Music/Sounds: When the father enters the house, he says "What's this? Been hanging around all day, have you?" When the father hits the boy, he asks "You been sitting all day watching telly?" When he walks to the TV he asks "Who's touched my videos?" and then raises his voice; "I've said who's messed up my videos?" He shakes the boy and shouts; "Don't just sit there when I'm talking to you!" After he throws the boy at the table, a cartoonic-thump and canned laughter is heard and he says firmly, "Start bucking your ideas up son, and I'm telling you." At the kitchen where the boy was playing with his toys, the man steps on a squeaky toy and then says "Now what the hell are you up to?" When he throws the toy at his son, he yells "Look at the state of this place!" and "Look at the state of it!" when shaking him. He yells "LOOK AT IT!” with the boy shouting a child-voice "Ow!" before throwing him at the wall, with canned laughter following this. When the boy trips over his father's foot, he asks "What did I tell you about running indoors? Eh? What did I tell ya?!” when burning his cigarette butt on the boy's head. A cartoonish fire sound is heard when the boy's head is lit on fire, then a falling sound when the boy's head falls into crumbs in the sink along with a laugh track. When the father goes up the stairs, he opens the boy's bedroom door, he asks "Where are you?" After he opens the door and finds the boy watching television on his bed, he says "There you are. What are you up to?" The boy responds with "I'm not, I'm not," while backing up, with the father shouting "I just asked what you're up to!" Why did you make me do this?" with a cartoonish sound when the boy wets his pants. The father shouts, "You dirty b**tard! GET OUT!" After the boy runs out of his room, the father yells, "That's it, get! Go on, you f**king run! Get out of here!" when throwing the boy down the stairs, making Disney-esque bonk sounds and the boy panicking, and finally a drum crash when he falls down the bottom step. All we hear is silence in the remainder of the PIF, while the camera pans to reveal that a real boy is lying at the bottom of the stairs, unconscious. Availability: Seen on YouTube videos. Scare Factor: High To Nightmare. The canned laughter throughout the video could add a humorous effect to the PIF, but the cigarette butt burning the boy's head and the fact that the man was abusing his son could raise the scare factor a bit. When the boy falls down the stairs and see him lying on the floor in reality, the scare factor may rise, due to the silence and the remorse for the boy. This is NOT suitable at all for kids! This was largely forgotten by most people whatsoever, the animation is cheap (even worse than Walt Disney, Hanna-Barbera, Don Bluth or Klasky-Csupo's animation combined together), also not suitable for kids because of the strong language. For David Droga, the creative director, this was the script that stuck out from the possibles. He said "That was it – we wanted to show the kind of violence and abuse that advertising regulators would never allow. Having a cartoon child enabled that to happen, making viewers extremely uneasy about the juxtaposition of an animated world with the grim reality of child abuse." The project, conceived by Howard Wilmott and Duncan Marshall, took shape after Passion Pictures' animation experts and director Frank Budgen began working on how to formulate the ad. Created by Saatchi & Saatchi London, the ad was directed by Frank Budgen from Gorgeous and animated by Passion Pictures. Category:NSPCC Category:United Kingdom Category:PIFs Category:Animated PIFs Category:Violent PIFs Category:Charities PIFs Category:2000's PIFs Category:PIFs rated 18 Category:Cinema PIFs Category:Video PIFs Category:Child Abuse PIFs Category:Anti-smoking PIFs Category:Stolen Music Category:Nightmare-rated PIFs Category:2002